DENVER _ It isn't easy to beat the Giants these days, and it's become even more difficult for an opponent to score off of Madison Bumgarner.
The Rockies accomplished both of those feats in a 5-2 defeat of the Giants on Monday, even if they did their damage when Bumgarner finally came off the mound.
The Giants have won 11 of their last 15 games, but all four of their losses have come in games in which they've allowed at least three runs after the sixth inning.
After snapping off 22 straight scoreless innings, Bumgarner opened the bottom of the seventh by allowing three straight singles including an infield dribbler off the bat of Charlie Blackmon to load the bases.
With Rockies slugger Nolan Arenado at the plate, Bruce Bochy strolled to the mound and took the ball out of Bumgarner's hands and turned the game over to his bullpen with a 2-0 lead.
The wheels fell off and Colorado stopped San Francisco in its tracks.
A bases loaded walk by reliever Reyes Moronta plated Colorado's first run and the Rockies tied the game on a double play ball. Moronta nearly escaped the inning after inducing a groundball, but Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford threw the ball away from first baseman Brandon Belt and the Rockies broke the tie.
The Giants began their six-game road trip with a miserable 16-26 record away from AT&T Park this season, but a combination of stellar pitching performances and timely hits led to a series sweep of the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks. San Francisco beat one of the National League's toughest pitchers, Patrick Corbin, to open the weekend, but didn't need Bumgarner to improve to a season-best five games over .500.
Bumgarner entered Monday's start coming off back-to-back scoreless outings against the Padres and Rockies, having pitched both of those games in the pitcher-friendly confines of AT&T Park. While he allowed a combined five hits in 15 innings, the Giants ace had yet to showcase the type of fastball velocity the Giants have come to expect from him.
In 32 1/3 innings in June, Bumgarner threw just two pitches faster than 92 miles per hour. His velocity was back Monday, as he ramped his two-seamer up to 92.7 miles per hour and threw 44 fastballs at an average of 91.9 miles per hour.
Though the Rockies didn't score when Bumgarner was pitching, the left-hander was charged with two earned runs as the Giants fell to 45-41.
In their last outing against Rockies starter Kyle Freeland, the Giants were held scoreless through seven innings as they failed to provide Bumgarner with a single run of support. They waited until the ninth to draw first blood, but Brandon Crawford's walk-off home run off left-hander Harrison Musgrave was also the only run they needed to secure a 1-0 win.
This time around, Freeland's evening began in decidedly different fashion.
Giants center fielder Gorkys Hernandez swung at Freeland's first pitch and clobbered a 359-foot opposite field home run that sailed through the thin mountain air. It was the Giants' second leadoff homer of the year and their first since Gregor Blanco deposited a ball over the right field fence in Philadelphia in a 6-3 loss on May 10.
Hernandez's 11th homer of the year was also his fifth against the Rockies in 11 games, but it was one of just five hits the Giants recorded all night.
San Francisco added on in the third on a hit where the size of the Coors Field outfield helped net the Giants a run they likely wouldn't have scored in a smaller park. With Belt at first, catcher Buster Posey worked a nine-pitch at-bat and sent a hard one-hopper past the glove of Trevor Story at shortstop.
The ball continued to skip into the left center field alleyway, allowing Belt to race home and Posey to reach second with his 17th double of the year.
The Rockies threatened to answer against Bumgarner early on, but rookie left fielder Austin Slater provided outstanding defensive support to aid his starter. Slater caught a routine flyball in foul territory to help Bumgarner escape a bases loaded jam in the first, but he saved his best work for the next two innings.
In the second, Slater took away extra bases from left fielder Noel Cuevas with a headfirst dive and in the third, he snagged a rocket off the bat of Chris Iannetta to rob the Rockies of another scoring opportunity with the bases loaded.
